


What Isn't Real Can Still Damage Your Mind

by cleverqueen



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 3B fixit, Alternate Reality, Gen, Horror, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-18 05:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1416229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleverqueen/pseuds/cleverqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles wakes up. Again and again and again. Always into a nightmare. </p><p>But he has a plan to keep himself sane: wooing. It's easy to obsess over a scheme to win someone's love. Stiles makes his anchor the wooing of Derek Hale. </p><p>It's not as cute as it sounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All The World’s A Nightmare, And We Are Only Players

**Author's Note:**

> Although this starts out referencing 3B, it trails off into its own nightmarishness. Also, this isn’t actually very romantic. So if you wanted some serious Sterek, I’m not going to provide it. (That was my original plan, honestly: just some cute Sterek. And then I was suddenly plotting out all the horrible nightmares. And then this happened.)

Kira’s mother brandished her katana in Stiles’ direction. His own father stood at her shoulder, eyes hard and service weapon steady.

Strange that the pack wasn’t here to help him face certain death.

 _I’m Stiles._ He wanted to say. _Look behind my ear._

But the cloth clogged his mouth and wrapped so tightly around his throat that he thought it would choke him to death before Noshiko got her chance.

They were in the McCalls’ front room. They were at the high school.

The sun beat down. The snow fell and melted onto his face like tears.

If only he could tell them! He reached out his hands, harmless and beseeching, but they were wrapped into claw shapes. _No. I’m still Stiles. Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me. Don’tkillmedon’tkillmedon’tki—_

 

*

 

“Ngaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Stiles sucked in a deep breath, the better to start screaming again.

His hands were free, and his fingers flexed. He tossed his unbound head and gasped for air through his wet, empty mouth. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

And then he was bound again. Strong bands wrapped around his ribs from behind, pinning him with their warmth. Warm, cold. Rough, smooth. It didn’t matter. He had to be free. He had to be himself. He was _Stiles_.

“Shhhh. It’s okay.”

The pinions were arms, he realized. Arms that gripped gently, not hard enough to hurt. Maybe everything _was_ okay. How was he already lying down?

He controlled his thrashing. Panted into the morning sunshine illuminating his bedroom. He was home.

God, he was so tired.

His father said, “I’m here. You’re awake.”

And that was worse. If he was awake and still an evil creature, then his dad was in serious danger. He almost preferred the dream; his father standing behind Noshiko, ready to do what must be done, barrel pointing straight at his own son.

Which made this situation a nightmare.

Which meant it wasn’t real.

He closed his eyes and focused what little energy he still had. _So tired._ “Wake up, Stiles. Wake up. Wake up! Wake up!”

The arms clutched him tighter. “You’re awake. I promise. I’m real.”

“You’d say that, though. If you weren’t, I mean.”

They both knew that Stiles had given in when he responded. He’d still be fighting, instead of getting lost in logic puzzles, if he didn’t trust this new reality on some level.

His father huffed against his nape, humid breath bearing the sour-sweet smell of stale coffee. “And I’d say it if I were. Maybe we should have Melissa take a look at you. These nightmares are getting worse.”

They’d done that before. In the real world, not in the dream. So this had to be the dream.

Stiles didn’t want this to be the dream. The togetherness, the protectiveness, the slanting spring sunlight. Though, he’d swear it was winter.

He screwed up his eyes into lines of willful confusion, not that his dad could see them. “She already did? You came to see me in the hospital. Remember?”

“Ummm.... no. That never happened.” His father managed to sound amused and worried at the same time. Stiles expected awkward belly-pats any minute.

But this wasn’t the time to think about cute awkwardness. He had to make reality be real. He had to know. His dad had to know.

“And then I got diagnosed with the same thing Mom had.”

Dad inhaled sharply. “That _never happened._ ” He sat them both up on the bed, displaying an amazing amount of abdominal strength for a middle-aged non-werewolf. “You must have dreamed it.”

Stiles’ breath stuttered out in three staccato pushes. _It was just a nightmare._ He wasn’t dying. He wasn’t falling prey to mom’s disease. _Oh!_ He remembered now. Mom died in a car crash. Dad knew everything and still loved him. How could he ever have thought...

“I really hope I’m awake right now.” He was so stupid. Why hadn’t he tested it?

He struggled out of his dad’s arms and rocketed over to the piled mess on his desk. The piles were burial cairns of old pre-calc homework and kanima research and the Spanish II workbook Stiles had lost last semester and failed to return.

What was absent from the pile, in pictorial form at least, was anything on kitsune or nogitsune.

He heard himself murmuring like a crazy person. “Can I read? Can I read? Can I read?” But he didn’t care about the crazy. He’d already been to Eichen House. He’d go back if he had to. But was this world real?

At first, the letters on the pages swum in front of him, and his heart burst painfully inside of his chest, forcing him to breathe fast fast _too fast_ to put out the internal fire.

His father’s hand on his neck, scruffing him like a kitten, pulled him back to the here and now. To the maybe-dream and now. Together, father and son breathed. Measured.

“What?” his dad asked.

“You can’t read when you’re dreaming,” Stiles told him. Though how dad had missed _that_ fact, Stiles had no idea.

Stiles tried again to read the pizza delivery advertisement on the top of his pile o’ stuff. It offered five dollars off a large pie when you ordered a salad. He found his summer English essay on _Farewell to Manzanar._

His dad laughed. “You must’ve dreamed up that self-diagnosis, kid. I’ve never heard anything so hokey.”

On the plus side, he could read. Unfortunately, he’d just learned that wasn’t necessarily a litmus test in this particular maybe-dream.

“Oh my God.”

The room turned blurry around him. Now the broken lamp was in focus, now it wasn’t. His green-painted walls took on a blackened tinge, then brightened. He was lost. Awash in details that didn’t matter, mightn’t be real. His mouth was clear, but he still choked.

Like Scott, he needed an anchor.

One that wasn’t Allison.

_If Mister His Password Is Also Allison could change his anchor, then I can choose one for myself. Did that even happen, though? Did Scott and Allison break up? Is he dating Kira now?_

_If there are no kitsune, Kira shouldn’t even exist. If she’s not real, then I didn’t try to kill her. She wasn’t there to kill._

Stiles knew Derek’s anchor was anger, didn’t know what any of the rest of the wolves had picked. _Too bad it can’t be fear._ He didn’t think he could always be angry. Even if he could, it’d be confusing every time he woke up from another nightmare. He’d have to spend precious seconds figuring out who to be angry with and why.

And what if he woke up kissing Lydia? It’d be pretty hard to be angry at the world while kissing Lydia, tasting her raspberry-mint lip gloss. He knew from experience. It had happened once. Mostly, it was confusing and weird and had just stunned him into stillness.

Yeah. He couldn’t be angry during _that._

But kissing wasn’t a bad idea. Not Lydia, obviously, because that hadn’t worked out well at all. And he couldn’t just kiss whoever he was with at any given moment. Not only because he’d probably end up kissing Gerard Argent, but because sometimes you had to fight or talk or plan, and kissing got in the way of that.

As Scallison well knew.

“Courting,” he declared. “Wooing someone. That’ll be my anchor. The thing that I focus on in every dream.”

He turned away from the strewn mess on his desk and looked hopefully at his dad, illuminated by the buttery sunshine in the center of the room.

“That’s a good idea, right?”

His dad shrugged. “It’s true that teenagers think obsessively about their love interests and plans to woo them, even when they should be studying for midterms or running for their lives,” he said pointedly. “You got someone in mind?”

Lydia was safe, easy. But she was a bad choice. Not just because of the above-noted problems, but because there was no urgency there. He might _forget_ to woo her when the reality changed.

Kira... he wasn’t sure Kira was real. And he definitely needed someone who would be there.

Erica, Boyd, Heather. They’d have been great choices. But they were all dead. He was pretty sure. Still.

“Heather?” he asked dad. His hands trembled behind his back, fluttering over the coupon on his desk. _Let her death be a nightmare. There was no darach._

His dad shook his head and looked sadly at the rug.

They didn’t speak, observing a moment of silence for the girl he’d known since they were three. Stiles would have liked to give her more than a moment, but his needs were urgent and he had ADHD. Heather would understand.

Allison was too scary. Isaac was turning into a baby-Argent. Derek was too damaged. Peter was too creepy. Mrs. McCall was too Oedipal.

“Go back,” his dad said. “Derek Hale?”

Apparently, Stiles had been listing out loud. Or dream-Dad had cut out the middle-man and listened to his thoughts. _Whatever_.

And this had to be a dream because real-Dad wouldn’t think Derek was the best choice, right? Largely because Derek wasn’t the best choice. Not because he wasn’t hot, or loyal, or smart, or strong, or supportive. Derek was all those things.

What he wasn’t was _emotionally available._

Stiles waved negating hands in front of him, one flailing so wide it bounced off the map on the wall. Briefly, Stiles wondered which version of the map it was. There weren’t enough red strings for his nogistune research. “No, Dad. Just no. Not poor Derek. He’s still recovering from being almost killed by his third real girlfriend, after the second one also almost killed him, and he succeeded at killing the first.” He paused. “That all still happened, right?”

His dad scrubbed a hand over watering eyes. “I can confirm that Ms. Blake did almost kill him a few weeks ago.”

A coldness clenched at Stiles’ heart. _Weeks?_ He’d swear the darach had made her attack months ago. Or was it days?

“More importantly,” Dad said. “Derek doesn’t appear to be interested in men.”

His skin prickled with sweat. “And that’s a _positive_? He’ll never go for it.”

His dad didn’t reply, just waited for Stiles to understand.

“Oh. He’ll never go for it. He might not even notice. I can do this indefinitely.” The coldness around Stiles’ heart disappeared, leaving a serious flutter in its wake. He bounced in his sneakers. This was _perfect._ Except... “I’m pretty sure Derek doesn’t want to be courted.”

“Kid, at this point, I don’t care. I just want you healthy.”

Stiles busied himself rearranging the papers on his desk. He should feel guilty about this, about forcing unwanted attention on a man whose romantic entanglements had all gone horribly wrong. He should respect Derek’s healing processes. He should under no circumstances _use_ the damaged man like every other terrible person in Derek’s life had done.

But dream-Dad was right. He didn’t care. He could worry about Derek later, when he was sane enough to worry about someone else.

Stiles buried the pizza coupon between the pages of _Farewell to Manzanar_.

Maybe he could find ways of wooing that improved Derek’s life. Then he wouldn’t need to feel bad at all.


	2. Call Me Bob Newheart Because This Is All A Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More nightmares! And some wooing. And some nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s some major character death in this chapter, but I didn’t tag it because it isn’t permanent. This is all inside a nightmare, and since Stiles wakes up (and everyone involved is alive again) it seemed a disingenuous tag. Feel free to tell me I’m wrong in the comments, and I’ll fix the tags!

Since Dad hadn’t said anything about going to school, Stiles figured it had to be a weekend. Unless it was summer break. Though, if it were summer, it would be earlier in the day than he’d originally thought (based on the spring-quality sunlight highlighting his room’s dustmotes in a stream of sparkles).

Whenever it was, Scott should also be available. At least as far as school was concerned. Stiles could never keep up with his best friend’s combined girlfriend + veterinarian schedule.

Stiles rooted around in his lamp-free dresser drawer till he found his phone. It had a mint green skin, and the background was a picture of him and Heather at age ten. He shivered and opened his Contacts list, blotting out the wallpaper.

“Stiles?” Scott sounded very confused.

Maybe it wasn’t a weekend or summer break. But Stiles couldn’t let that distract him anymore than the lingering taste of copper in his mouth. _No time for mouthwash, Batman! It’s time for wooing!_

“Bro! I have a plan. And it is an awesome plan. But I need some help from my best buddy with his wolfy insider information.”

“Just a sec.” Scott’s phone made all sorts of rustling noises, and Stiles heard him shout, “Mom! I’m going over to Stiles’.” Then there was more staticky banging that Stiles refused to believe sounded like words, especially not words that said _let me in_. “I can be over in five.”

And then Scott was in Stiles’ room, as though the five minutes had never happened. _Is this what insanity feels like or did I just take a nap? When did I take my pills last?_

Scott wore a huge backpack that only a werewolf or a freshman girl could lift (because everyone knew that freshman girls were freaks of nature who could carry whole houses on their shoulders).

“Soooooo,” Scott said when it became clear Stiles was too caught up in thinking about the way freshmen couldn’t use lockers properly, “what’re we doing? I brought homework.” From the giant backpack, Scott produced his iPad with Quizlet already queued up.

“SAT prep again?”

Scott wrinkled his brows. “When did we last do SAT prep?”

“Like a week ago, on that lacrosse trip.” Stiles didn’t want to think about the rest of the lacrosse trip. His arms still ached from tugging the safe off Boyd’s unmoving chest.

“Dude, that was last semester.”

But it couldn’t have been. Because it was still lacrosse season, wasn’t it? They still stayed after school to get bawled out incomprehensibly by Coach.

He and Scott both wore jeans, t-shirts, and the same plaid shirts as they had back then.

Scott popped open a bag of Doritos, and cheesy orange scent particles floated Stiles’ way, pulling him out of his musings. _When_ this was could wait. It wasn’t important. He had to focus. Derek!

“We’re not here to study,” he told Scott. “We’re here to change my love life.”

Scott tossed the iPad onto a pillow and scooted forward, so close to the edge of the bed Stiles thought he might fall off. “Oooooh. Is it Lydia? No, it can’t be Lydia. Harley?”

_Whatever happened to Harley anyway?_

Stiles leaned in too, close enough to smell the corn-residue on Scott’s breath. “Nope. It’s Derek.”

Scott’s nose scrunched. “I know he’s part of my pack now, and he’s been pretty cool since Halloween, but are you sure?”

Stiles let the comment about Halloween go. He was 95% sure this was a dream, so losing time didn’t matter. 85% at least. And he had to get going on his wooing plan before the nightmarishness started and made him forgot or lose focus.

Or lose his mind completely.

“I’m so sure.” He flopped back in his desk chair and stared up at the cracks in his ceiling, not coincidentally baring his throat and playing on Scott’s new Alpha instincts. “And he’s had bad luck with human courtship, so I want to go after him the werewolf way.” He sat up again, chair rattling at the suddenness. “What’s the werewolf way, Scott?”

Scott, wonderful paragon of a best friend that he was, didn’t try to dissuade Stiles any further. He accepted that this was Stiles’ plan and went with it. “Mister Argent warned me off leaving a deer on their doorstep once. Maybe you should do that.”

The room spun around them. All sunlight and dustmotes and backpacks and green walls and a One Direction poster he’d taken from Heather’s bedroom.

Then it was late afternoon and light filtered in through the treetops in the woods north of Beacon Hills.

Stiles knew where they were, knew his Jeep was parked two miles back where the dirt trail narrowed. He had a shotgun on his back and a baseball cap protecting him from the UV and possible ticks. But he didn’t recall gearing up for this.

Up ahead, Scott was in beta form, sniffing the air ostentatiously. The werewolf motioned Stiles closer with clawed fingertips that looked uncomfortably torqued.

Stiles checked shotgun’s chamber, then the safety. If Scott had a deer lined up, Stiles would take it down and deliver it to his Object of Affections.

Affection Object? Affectionate Other?

His AO.

Scott waved Stiles over a few roots and slunk back to keep everything quiet. Birds overhead flapped from tree to tree, making the loudest noise in the woods.

Stiles saw his white-tailed quarry and snugged the gun against his right shoulder. He breathed in deeply, smelling decomposing leaves and fresh shoots. Halfway through his exhale, he pulled the trigger.

The loud boom forced his heart to skip a beat. All his nerves jangled.

_Don’t wake up yet. You’re so close._

The deer fell to the mottled forest floor. Scott raced ahead.

_Don’t wake up. You’re doing this for Derek. To win Derek. You like Derek._ Convincing himself wasn’t as hard as he would once have believed. No wonder Scott hadn’t argued.

“You got her!” Scott called up. “C’mon. You want your scent all over this.”

Stiles double-checked the safety was on and tripped down to Scott and the deer. He’d hunted with his dad before on camping trips, and this deer was gorgeous.

“Derek’ll love it,” he told himself and Scott. He pulled the ties he’d brought out of his back pocket, moving the deer’s hooves a bit.

“What’s that?”

Underneath the deer, still mostly obscured, Stiles could see the edge of a wavy line drawn in the dirt. “Help me move Derek’s present, Scott.”

Derek could live with its smelling a bit like Stiles’ best friend. Everything he owned smelled faintly of Scott anyway.

Together, they heaved the carcass slightly to the side, muscles straining under the weight. (Well, Stiles’ muscles. Scott could’ve done it alone, but that’s why they were best friends. Because Scott understood about impressing the potential love of your life, even in the middle of a possible crisis situation.)

“Whoa,” Scott breathed.

Someone had drawn three wavy lines in the forest floor, over a foot deep. It had to have been done with a stick, not claws, but the teens had both seen more than enough werewolf traditional symbols recently. They couldn’t just assume some bored deerhunter had scratched a pattern in the dirt.

Stiles pulled out his phone and took some photos. He sent them to Scott immediately.

Scott’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket. “I’m going to send these to Deaton and tell everyone to stay safe until we figure out what this is.” He frowned at Stiles, eyes flashing red. “You should go home too.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. That was Scott all over, protective of his friends. It had only gotten worse (better?) since he’d become Alpha. Scott was really excelling at this True Alpha thing.

“I still need to take this deer to Derek. And you’re with me, so I’ve got to be pretty safe right now, right?”

Scott’s eyes cleared of their eerie light. “Yeah, of course. But let’s hurry okay?” He shouldered the deer like it weighed less than his backpack had.

A faint musk floated Stiles’ way, making him glad _he_ wasn’t the one carrying the carcass. He must have made some kind of face, because Scott patted him on the back as he raced up the hill toward the Jeep. “Dude, you got this.”

At least someone had faith in him. Stiles wasn’t sure he had _anything_ under control.

 

*

 

When they parked the Jeep in front of Derek’s apartment building, dusk had settled over the town. Stiles leaned against the driver’s side door and looked at the building’s narrow entranceway, wondering how Derek had ever moved in his bed.

“There’s got to be a service entrance to this place, right?” Because there was no way the deer would fit otherwise.

Scott shrugged, toe screwing into the oil-slick pavement. “We could call Derek.”

“And make him get his own deer?”

“We delivered it most of the way,” Scott suggested even as he slipped a hand into Stiles’ back pocket and pulled out his phone. “Those jeans are super-faded by the way.”

Stiles’ red jeans had gone through their pink phase and were heading more towards strawberry-blond with each washing. “Thank you, _Lydia_.” These jeans had seen him through multiple near-death experiences. They’d bonded. He wouldn’t trade them for the world.

His phone buzzed in Scott’s hand.

“He’s not home,” Scott read off the screen. “We’ll have to figure out a way to take this upstairs on our own.”

They looked at the narrow door. They looked at the deer on the Jeep’s roof. They looked back at the door. In near unison they suggested, “Cut it up?”

Stiles had a large hunting knife in his glove box. Scott produced one from a back pocket (“I don’t want to use _my_ claws on _your_ kill!”). Stiles measured the doorway. Scott drew pen marks where they needed to cut.

And they set to carving.

The first slices were easy, peeling the limbs off the trunk. Stiles hacked deeper when he reached the second slice-line, pushed his knife against bone and pulled at the spine with his fingertips.

He could taste copper and fur on his tongue. Blood gushed over his wrists and ran in cooling rivulets up to his elbows whenever he stopped to wipe sweat from his brow with his shoulder. Crimson pooled with blackening oil on the parking lot floor.

_What am I doing?_ He’d never been good with blood, but this was for Derek.

Meat squished between his fingers. Blood was all over him. On his hands, on his arms. It stained his jeans and got in his mouth.

He flashed to Heather’s dead body on the table, her throat slit like the deer’s side.

_Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up._

 

*

 

Stiles sat straight up in bed, letting the soft mattress and the softer light calm his racing heart. _It was just a dream._ He hadn’t really done a horrible job of butchering a deer carcass in Derek Hale’s parking lot.

Right, Derek. He needed to think about Derek. Dream-Scott had been onto something with the scent thing. He looked across the room to his open closet on the other side of his pristinely cleared desk.

The white desktop never had anything on it. Stiles’ messy mind needed an uncluttered work surface.

Inside the closet, his clothes were organized by style, weight, and color. For the scent marking, he’d need to use the ones worn closest to his body and that would be the t-shirts. Though, the hoodies would be more plausible for all that they were less pungent.

Someone knocked on his door. _Knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock._

“Let me in!” called a hoarse male voice.

“Well?” said Lydia from beside him. She was curled up under his sheets like a kitten. How had he not noticed her before? “Are you going to let him in?”

Outside, his dad accused, “Why is this door locked, Stiles?”

Lydia prodded, “It’s his house, Stiles.” Always the voice of reason. He knew there was a reason he hadn’t let Derek kill her.

But Stiles wasn’t sure that was really his father. Wasn’t sure he was really here. Why was Lydia in his bed?

“Who are you?” he asked the possibly-Dad, unwilling to do anything yet. All he could count on was his plan. _Derek!_ “Who are you?”

Dad’s voice fell to the pitch it took on when he got really angry. “Let me in!”

But Stiles couldn’t. Not until he knew. “Who are you? _Dare ka_? _Dare ka_? _DARE!_ ”

And he woke up.

Stiles sat up straight in his twin bed, tangled in the comforter and obviously alone. There was no space for anyone else.

Starlight came in through the window. The house was dark, silent. Dad was at the station tonight. They’d lost a lot of people to the horrors of the last two years. Stiles didn’t even know half the new deputies yet.

He ran a hand over the velvety comforter, sinking his fingers into its luxurious plushness. Sometimes, you just had to splurge, which he’d definitely done with this comforter.

He flopped back against the pillows as his heartrate slowed. He was safe. This was a real bedroom. It smelled of teenage boy and Febreeze... and not the Doritos Scott had been eating earlier, so clearly _that_ had been a dream.

_Scott!_ He scrambled to find his phone, which ended up being under the bed. So he slumped against the frame and called his best friend. Scott wouldn’t mind that the homescreen proclaimed 1:42am against the factory-direct solid green background.

Scott’s details weren’t in his contacts in this reality, but Stiles memorized his cell number ages ago, so it wasn’t a big deal.

“ _The number you have reached...._ ”

Oh, right. Scott had moved to Arizona with FBI-agent Mr. McCall two months ago. Weird that Stiles hadn’t remembered that.

Well, he could call Lydia and let her calm him down. She’d been in his most recent nightmare, after all, and they’d become something like friends lately. It wouldn’t be weird.

But her number wasn’t in his phone either, and he didn’t have it memorized.

_Oh. Right._ Lydia had taken early admission at Cambridge. (“The math department is far superior to Oxford’s,” she’d said at her going-away party.)

Stiles had organized her going away party. He should have remembered.

Allison would take his call. She understood nightmares and the darkness around his heart. He scrolled through his contacts for her number.

_Oh. Right._ The Argents had picked up and moved back to France, and they’d taken Isaac with them.

His lungs shrank, and the room dimmed even further around him. Everyone was gone. His friends. His pack. Even Scott, who’d always been there. He was alone. He couldn’t be alone. His breathing picked up, and he remembered:

_Derek!_

The shock of memory calmed him, and he clambered back onto his bed, under the covers. This was just another reality, and Stiles had a plan for reality hopping. He had to woo Derek.

He scrolled his contacts again, barely breathing. _What if Derek isn’t here?_ Derek was always here in Beacon Hills.

He didn’t see Derek’s name in his contacts list.

_Okay, Stiles. Don’t freak out._

He breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth. Closed and opened his eyes. Enjoyed the silence like Depeche Mode wanted him to.

Then he went through his list again, slower this time, and found an entry for _Complete Alpha Hale._ But hadn’t Derek become a beta when...

And he remembered. In this universe, Cora had died, and Derek had killed faux-Alpha Peter for his duplicity. So, yeah, Derek was still around, and he was just as alone as Stiles. But if Derek was getting any sort of good sleep, then Stiles wasn’t going to be the one to mess that up by calling.

The Derek here needed someone to take care of him. And was probably doing a terrible job of mourning Cora. Well, Stiles was a pro at avoiding healthy mourning, which meant that he knew how it ought to be done. Derek was about to find himself on the receiving end of some hardcore Stilinski caregiving.

And he could leave a few t-shirts around the loft while he was at it, maybe sneak one into Derek’s bed to drive the werewolf crazy with confused lust during waking hours. Or something.

Stiles decided to start small. No t-shirts. Just dinner (Derek probably wasn’t eating well) and a collage of Cora photos. He got out of bed, swept the empty coffee cups from his desk to the trash bin, and flipped open his Macbook.

The bright backlight scorched his retinas, and he flinched away from the screen. Blinking till his eyes watered, he cracked his knuckles and stretched arms over his head like a runner gearing up for a race or a MMO gamer preparing for a dungeon instance. Eyes adjusted, he tapped madly at the cold metal keys.

Cora had to have photos on Facebook. Ooooh, like this one of her with some lovely ladies getting trashed at a bar (with a geolocation tag in Honduras).

He was multiple tabs deep into Cora’s drinking buddies (and had changed his laptop’s default language to Spanish even though he hadn’t taken it in school and barely knew more than a few food words and how to unlock an iPhone thanks to Mrs. McCall), when his phone rang.

A green swipe-button suggested that he _Contestar._ So he must’ve put his phone in Spanish too. He didn’t remember doing that.

He also didn’t know why someone would be calling him at 4:33am. The number was blocked. But it could be important. It could be a wolfy emergency. Or Scott from his new number. Or Derek, beloved Derek, for whom Stiles was making this kick-ass collage.

“Yello?” He’d been awake three hours and no one had died yet. Stiles was allowed to be perky.

“Hi, Stiles. This is Janet over at the Sherriff’s Office.”

Her voice was way softer than he usually heard it, but that might’ve been because of the crazy hour. Stiles met Janet when she’d first joined the department; she’d made him an elephant out of a pack of Twizzlers at the 4th of July party. He’d adored her ever since.

That was twelve years ago.

“I can tell.” He knew the smile was in his voice.

He still had that Twizzler-phant somewhere, shellacked with hairspray. _Ooooh, Cora, you’ve got some muscles, Chiquita._ He copied the image to his harddrive.

“Let me guess, Dad’s coming home later than usual tonight, so don’t wait up.” He clicked forward into an abandoned Instagram account that might have Cora-photos. “I can take care of myself alone for a little while.”

“Stiles.” Janet sniffed hard, and her voice went even softer. So soft, he could barely hear. “It’s going to be more than a while. Your dad’s not... He’s... There was a domestic disturbance, and the couple was armed.” She drew a harsh breath.

Stiles’ fingers withdrew from his keyboard. His right hand gripped the phone to his ear while his left clenched his sleep-naked knee. “How bad is it?” He’d have to get dressed and get to the hospital to wait in the ICU. Maybe Mrs. McCall would be working. He could look at more Hale photos on his phone from there.

“He’s dead, Stiles.”

Janet’s soft voice washed over him, drowning him with words words words. He heard the phone thud to the carpet, and he followed it down. He hit the rug on his hands and knees, using the floor to keep him stable in this new world where he was adrift, unmoored.

“Dad?” he called out, hoarse and thready. But, of course, Dad didn’t answer.

Stiles was all alone. Always alone. He rocked on the floor, giving himself comfort, the motion almost like a hug.

“Stiles?” Janet called, oh so quiet. “Are you there, sweetie?”

He rocked and rocked and rocked, alone on the waves of madness.

 

*

 

The room was still dark, but Stiles wasn’t on the floor. He was curled up in his queen-sized bed with the scent of Doritos in the air and a slender hand shaking his shoulder.

“Dad?” The vowel broke in the middle. It couldn’t be his dad. Dad was dead, on a domestic call. And the hand on his shoulder was too small, for all that its grip was more than strong enough.

“Wake up,” Allison hissed.

Her boot crunched on a lamp shard on the floor, where he’d flailed into it from inside his dad’s embrace that morning. Before he went out with Scott to kill a deer in this dream. Or was this reality?

Dad was at the station here, he remembered, and still alive. Stiles should bring him a hummus plate for dinner. Or maybe a cookie. Dad totally deserved a cookie for not being dead.

“What’re you doing here?” He scrabbled at the bedside table for his phone, checking his texts. One from Scott about Derek loving the deer and to stay inside because whoever made that wavy line thing could be upset that he’d seen it. Another from Derek bitching about the blood, but accompanied by a photo of venison steak on a plate. One from Dad telling him to have fun playing CoD at Scott’s tonight.

Allison swatted the phone out of his hand. Her face, briefly bathed in its white-blue light, looked ghost-pale and freaked out. “You have to help me! I barely escaped.”

He lunged for his backpack to pull out his Lenovo Yoga 13” laptop. He flipped it open to the Windows 8 login screen as he spoke. “What did it look like?” He could hunt through the bestiary superfast, and then they could take down whatever it was that had Allison so spooked before Derek even heard of it. It’d be like protecting his AO from harm, which had to be in the wooing handbook.

“What?” Allison sounded so shocked that Stiles stopped typing in order to look at her. Really look. She had no wounds, no weapons.

“You sleep in Sailor Moon pajamas?”

She rolled her eyes. “Because that’s the most important thing here.” Closing the laptop’s clamshell, she said, “It’s not a monster. It’s Scott.”

He could deal with Argents being a lot less cryptic in his life. What was Scott? He’d turned feral? He’d turned blue? He’d run off to join the circus as a strong man?

“None of those,” she said. So he must’ve been talking out loud again, or dream-Allison had listened in on his thoughts. Didn’t matter in the grand scheme of psychoses. “He’s had us all on lockdown since you two saw that symbol in the woods three weeks ago.”

Hadn’t that just been this morning? He’d swear Derek’s picture text had been from today.

“I’m pretty sure I went to school this morning,” he said. He didn’t mean for it to sound sarcastic. He just wanted to say something sensible. Because he didn’t have memories of Scott locking up all his friends. And if it had been three weeks, then he must’ve gone to school. And maybe seen Allison. And they could have had that weird chocolate ice milk at the cafeteria because this was a dream and he deserved all the not-quite-ice-cream if his subconscious was setting the menu. Though the darkness around his heart might be squashing all the tasty foods.

“He’s got my dad helping him enforce curfew at my house!” Allison exploded, but quietly, like she was afraid someone might be listening in for odd sounds from the Stilinski household. “Ethan is _dead_. Scott made Isaac help kill him before locking Isaac in his room at the McCall’s.” Allison shivered and pressed against Stiles’ side as if it’d warm her up. “I can hear Isaac screaming whenever I get close enough.”

Stiles pressed right back, even though he was probably too skinny to do much warming. Derek on the other hand... God, he had to remember to concentrate on Derek, even when Scott so clearly needed him. Derek was warm and muscular and could help them deal with this. And maybe he’d shred a shirt in the process, and Stiles could _just so happen_ to have a spare.

“What do you want me to do?”

“We can stage an intervention, like on _How I Met Your Mother_. You just need to get Scott out into neutral territory. He’ll listen to you. You can bring him back. Make him sane again.” Allison’s eyes shone with bright fervor in the moonlight.

“Right.” Stiles wasn’t sure he was sane enough himself to be judging other people. But he trusted Allison. At least, he trusted her about Scott. “One sec.”

He opened his laptop again and checked the photobook pricing on Winkflash because that Cora-collage had been a great idea and maybe he could make a whole book for this Derek (with photos he took himself because Cora was fine here). That’d give him a project to focus on while he did this.

And then they were in the woods. Stiles was wearing his off-pink jeans without any bloodstains because those jeans were awesome even inside of a nightmare. Allison had her bow and gloves at the ready, which seemed overkill for an intervention, but whatever.

“What do you think?” he asked her, scrolling on his phone as she scanned the trees. “The photo book with the classic covers are only sixteen ninety five, but I like the custom covers better. Still, twenty eight is a lot more.”

Winkflash was really good at upselling just by existing. Maybe he could find a promo code.

“They’re coming,” Allison said, totally ignoring his valid and important question. Her breath formed the words in wintry white. They should have brought jackets.

Aiden crashed into the clearing, eyes red and face screwed up. It had to be Aiden since Ethan was dead. Scott followed a bare second behind, Isaac cowering at his heels.

“What is it?” Scott demanded of Stiles. “Your message said to pick you up, dude, but you look fine to me.” His puppydog eyes would’ve worked better if they weren’t glowing.

“The Nemeton’s messing with you, buddy,” Stiles said, pocketing his phone. “I hear you’ve been killing people and imprisoning others. What’s the deal?”

“Ethan deserved it.” Scott growled, canines growing. “And you saw the symbol in the woods. We have to be careful.”

Allison nocked an arrow. “Put the claws away, Scott.”

His growl picked up.

“Now.” Her implacable tone reminded everyone that she was in control. Matriarch.

Stiles waved his arms in front of him. “Whoa! We can talk about the symbol like rational people. Make a plan. We’re good at that.” Actually, they sucked at making plans, but Stiles wasn’t going to introduce that fact into this rapidly deteriorating conversation.

Allison pulled her bowstring taut.

Isaac whimpered.

Scott leapt at his ex-girlfriend, claws extended, ready to rend and tear.

But a dark blur knocked him off the path. Together, Scott and the blur tumbled to the side till they rolled to a stop a few feet away. Allison’s arrow flew harmlessly into the trees.

Scott’s claws slashed down hard, and his True Alpha power overcame beta speed. The (crazy? probably crazy) Alpha wolf’s white t-shirt splattered with crimson. The eviscerated beta fell onto his back, a pink entrail slipping out onto the packed dirt.

Of course it was.

Derek. Beautiful Derek whose wolf features faded to smooth skin and stubbled dots. Protective Derek who’d saved an Argent from Scott’s unforeseen wrath. Sweet Derek who tried to support them all.

Derek, the only thing keeping Stiles afloat. (A voice in the back of his mind wondered if Scott was too far gone to apologize for killing the object of Stiles’ affections. But that didn’t matter right now. He slapped the voice aside.)

Stiles flew to the body, to provide some sort of comfort, but he didn’t know where to put his hands. Where to look. How to avoid the steaming innards and sour offal creeping out of Derek’s form along with the remaining life. So he just gripped Derek’s shoulder, relatively whole, and let senseless words babble over into Derek’s ears. Derek needed something other than this horror to focus on.

“And I was making you a photo book of all Cora stuff. I guess I’d’ve sprung for the custom cover, maybe a pic of the two of you together or something, maybe not. But you’d have loved it. She loves you, you know. She does.”

Derek bared his teeth in a confused and blood-filled smile. And the blood dripped to ground, along with the rest of his energy. His last act.

Stiles choked and stood. His knees wet with mud and God knew what else. He lurched toward Scott, head down and shoulders hunched. Shoved hands into pockets he knew contained mountain ash.

Scott snarled at him. “E tu, Brute?” Scott had been studying. But no one was grading this fight.

“Render unto Caesar,” Stiles quipped with a shrug. The more serious things got, the more they quipped. He and Scott. That had always been their way. And Derek’s. Sassy Derek.

Stiles flung the mountain ash into the air.

Scott rammed forward, claws first.

Stiles’ heart fell to the ground. Then the circle of ash followed it down, trapping Scott.

He heard the twang of Allison’s bow before he lost all consciousness forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and Kudos welcome. :)
> 
> Also, I still don’t have a beta. If you’d be interested, please let me know! I’ll trade services or dedicate a chapter to you or just be grateful...


	3. A Different Kind of Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles wakes up in an innocent world where Scott was never a werewolf and all he needs to worry about is his Captain America Halloween costume. Then it all goes horribly wrong, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place all in one universe; the little scene breaks are just scene breaks, not universe breaks. This is a no-Argents universe which means a lot of stuff never happened. (Have fun spotting details, if that's your thing!)
> 
> Also, I kill a character in this chapter. Again. But, y'know, it's in a nightmare, so they'll be alive in the next one. Let me know if you want the tags changed to "Major Character Death", though.

Stiles woke up before his alarm on Halloween morning, impressively well-rested for a teenager seeing 5:30am.

In the early morning gloom, he could see the outline of his Captain America costume. (Scott was going as Thor so that they could match. He’d been growing his hair out for the last nine months, and it had reached levels of long and shaggy unseen since freshman year. Sometimes it got in the way of Scott’s inhaler, but they’d learned to push the hair back before giving him a hit of the good stuff.)

Stiles smelled frying eggs and took that as a sign to hurry up before they were all gone. He shimmied into his spandex and thundered down the stairs. (Though, obviously, thundering would be more of Scott’s gig today.)

“Morning, Dad.”

Dad snorted, but still plated scrambles for both of them. “You gonna wear that all day at school?”

“Heck yeah! Me and Scott worked too hard on these to waste ’em on just Lydia’s party.” Lydia hadn’t technically invited them to her party that evening, but the whole lacrosse team was going, so they were sorta invited by default.

“So long as these are the only eggs you’re associated with today.”

And what even? Stiles had never once egged someone’s house. Not even Jackson. And God knew Jackson totally deserved it—especially after the kanima thing (wait; what kanima thing? What was a kanima? It didn’t matter. Jackson still deserved egging for being a complete asshole)—but Mr. and Mrs. Whittemore definitely didn’t. “Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go get Scott before you’re late for zero period.”

Scott was, of course, resplendent in his Thor costume, even if the cape tangled with his backpack straps every time he tried to take it off. Or walked more than two steps.

Out of breath, Scott slung himself into Stiles’ Jeep. “Mom says we did a good job with these and that no one’s going to recognize us.”

Stiles just laughed. They might be dressed as superheroes, but they sure didn’t have secret identities. Unless they counted social invisibility.

 

*

 

All through the school day, something felt off.

It wasn’t the kids elbowing each other and pointing at a fully kitted Captain America wandering the halls. (Hint: They weren’t so subtle.) Stiles had kinda expected that, if anyone noticed at all.

It wasn’t the weird way Mr. Harris had acted, meanly calling him out for an unbalanced redox formula instead of being supportive. That had never happened before because Stiles was acing that class (but it felt kinda familiar anyway).

He figured it out just after third period: the strange shift came from all the people wandering the halls. He thought he knew everyone in the junior class, but maybe not.

At lunch, over a tray of something red and goopy that smelled like it’d shared its storage container with some fish, he admitted his ignorance. “Scott. Who’s the girl with the cat ears on?” He didn’t want to point at her. It’d be rude.

“You mean Anh?”

Scott’s papier-mâché hammer rested underneath Stiles’ shield beside their meals, while Stiles’ cowl kept his neck warm. Their full-sized replicas disrupted the tabletop’s pattern, which was three wavy lines in a small box, printed in a crosshatch.

“No. I know Anh. C’mon. The _other_ girl with cat ears.” Okay, a lot of girls were wearing cat ears for Halloween, he was only failing to recognize one. “She’s to your right and looking right at us.”

She couldn’t have overheard them. He was 99.44% sure. (And what was up with that anyway? Sure the last .56% was air, according to Wikipedia, but why did Ivory soap _advertise_ its impurities?)

“Jessica Hale? She’s in our World History class, dude.”

 _Oh right._ Suddenly, he could come up with names and backstories for the three juniors he’d seen and not recognized. All Hales. They lived in that huge house in the Preserve and mostly hung out with each other. Four generations of cousins and cousins’ cousins or something.

It was like his mind was all pins and needles, and the information rode the cool wave of resumed circulation.

But underneath these new memories, another thread unspooled. (Hey. Scott was dressed as Thor. Norse mythology metaphors were cool. He’d always been a fan of the Fates.) This sub-memory overflowed with death and darkness.

It told him that only Derek and Cora survived a huge fire at the Hale house, sometimes with an Uncle Peter... whom Stiles might have tried to kill. (The sub-memory was fuzzy on that point.) It told him about werewolves and betrayal and hunters and the Nemeton.

The sub-memory chilled his heart and skin inside his full-body spandex costume. The oily residue from the kerosene wicks (from the kill-Peter Molotovs) phantom-coated his tongue.

Hale! Derek! His plan!

So far, life had seemed pretty normal and not at all nightmarish, but his sub-memory-self had a plan to woo the stubbly and stoic Derek Hale, and current-Stiles figured: why not? The guy was pretty hot in his memories. Stiles could go over to the Hale house bearing gifts, maybe enough coffee for everyone who lived out there, and they’d be bound to like him.

And maybe they really would turn out to be werewolves. Though, that seemed pretty farfetched.

 

*

 

After school, Stiles dropped Scott at the McCall house and promised to be back at 7:30 so they could head to Lydia’s party. Then he purchased memory-Derek’s favorite coffee beans (Peet’s Major Dickason and “don’t complain about how commercial it is! ::growl::”), portioned them out into individual use sachets, and drove out to the Preserve.

He parked a mile from the house (because he hadn’t been invited) and shouldered his sack of roasted gloriousness. Before leaving his Jeep, he gave in to a brief fit of paranoia and slid a Taser into his pocket. Then he ran a knife blade over some purple flowers that his spare memories told him was wolfsbane and stuck that in his pocket too.

_This Stiles is ready to meet all comers! No one is going to stop me from delivering these awesome beans._

With each step towards the Hales’, his bag of sachets bounced and clacked against his leg, sending up a wave of coffee-smell.

To keep himself company (and just in case the werewolf thing was true), he started talking. “So, uh, my name is Stiles. Stiles Stilinksi? And I think some of you know me, but I’m really just here to see Derek.”

He tripped over a tree root, and the sack swung forward, wrenching his shoulder. But he steadied himself and soldiered on. “If I’m right, you guys are werewolves and can probably hear me. And if I’m wrong, then this is super embarrassing, but at least you don’t know about it.”

He passed a tree with three wavy lines scored into the bark deep enough that they dripped sap like blood from a wound. “Yeah. So, that’s it. I guess. I’m Stiles. You’re wolves. Is Derek home?”

He felt like a kid asking it like that, but how else was he supposed to find out?

 

*

 

_Inside the Hale home, the werewolves in residence listened to Stiles’ ramble with increasing shock._

_Talia asked her son, “Do you know this guy?”_

_But Jessica Hale was the one who answered. “He goes to school with me. He seemed weird today, asking his friend who I was like he’d never seen me.”_

_Derek shrugged. He’d never met a Stiles and had better things to do than wait for some high school loser to drop by._

_Peter smirked. “He sounds fun to me.”_

_Sighing, Talia delegated to her brother. “In that case, you can go meet him.”_

_Peter bounced and shifted, his blue eyes gleaming. “I’m gonna play with him a bit before I bring him in. If he wants a werewolf, then he’ll get a werewolf. Perfect for Halloween.”_

*

 

The house was in sight, fading sunlight glinting off the upper windows. Stiles hitched the coffee sack higher on his shoulder and felt in his pocket to confirm the Taser-and-knife combo.

Behind him, a man’s voice drawled, “Aren’t you a little old for trick or treating?”

Stiles swung around, bag catching the stranger in the stomach.

The man doubled over, eyes flaring. Though Stiles had never seen him before, his memories recognized werewolf. _Peter! Danger!_

Energy sparked off the Taser, and Peter howled. It sounded like a cry for vengeance.

The werewolf looked feral, eyes too bright and canines slavering. He swiped claws swiped in Stiles’ direction, and Stiles stopped thinking.

He reacted.

Stiles was a ball of instinct. Instinct from war nightmares. Instinct from Dad’s self-defense classes. He pulled the knife from his pocket and slashed. He caused a small scrape, tiny blood-beads welling up.

The werewolf howled a second time.

Stiles pressed his advantage. _Never again, Re-Peter._ He stabbed his wolfsbane-coated knife into his attacker.

Five times.

By the time the Hales found them, Stiles was shivering and crying in a pool of blood. The knife lay on the ground between him and the mangled body.

Derek wailed and leaped to his uncle’s side, bypassing Stiles entirely. He cried till his eyes flashed yellow. “He was my best friend, you _hunter_.”

Stiles was still crying when his father came to arrest him for the murder of Peter Hale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and Kudos welcome! :)
> 
> Oh! And you can find me on [tumblr](http://cleverqueen.tumblr.com/). Y’know, if you want to.


	4. With Or Without You (I Can’t Live)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember that episode where Scott offers to turn Stiles if it'll cure his frontotemporal dementia? Also, there are more nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll notice this moved up to five chapters from four. I was editing and this was such a good breaking point. (Have no fear. I have, in fact, finished writing this story. It's all about self editing here. Since I don't have a beta. Though you could volunteer for that position, dear reader.)

Stiles’ arms goosepimpled under his threadbare hospital gown.

Up above, the doctors and his dad watched the MRI’s diagnostic screens, but Scott had rejoined Stiles in the chamber, sitting beside him while they waited to hear the news. To hear whether he was losing his mind just like his mother had.

“I promise,” Scott said, reminding Stiles that he’d give him the bite.

_It won’t come to that. It can’t._

Scott was a warm brick against Stiles’ shoulder, something steady to lean on. Something that smelled like home and comfort and pudding cups, instead of lemony antiseptic.

Then he cocked his head—too bad Stiles wasn’t feeling in the mood for puppy jokes right now—and bit his lip with an ever-growing incisor.

“What?” Stiles was pretty sure he knew what. But he needed to hear it.

“It’s not good, Stiles.”

The magnetic tube next to them must have turned into a vacuum that sucked all the air.

Scott continued, “You have it. Like your mom.” He wrapped a flannel-clad arm around Stiles’ vulnerable shoulders. “You have it.”

Stiles may have emerged from that claustrophobic coffin, but it could still shatter his life with the things it revealed. He choked on the sob that should have left him breathless.

“Do it,” he whispered. “Please. You could fix me.”

Scott’s eyes glistened like they were decomposing, and he swallowed hard. “Yeah. Okay.”

Fangs as bright as knives sank into Stiles’ shoulder. He gasped against the pain, felt his insides liquefy.

The lights guttered out.

Stiles could see Scott’s red eyes as well as the cobwebs in the near-black corners. Could hear the controlled panic from the nurses down the hall. Could smell the salty nervousness of previous MRI patients.

“That was fast,” Stiles said.

He felt fine. He felt healthy. He felt powerful.

He felt like he belonged to Scott. And that just wasn’t right. Stiles had always been the leader of their duo. _He_ was the one with all the power.

“How do you feel?” Scott asked.

_Angry._

Stiles lunged forward and tore out his best friend’s throat. Scott hadn’t been expecting it, didn’t even try to defend himself.

“I feel like I’m the Alpha now.” He smirked as he said the words, then made sure to clean all the blood and gore from between his teeth.

The lights came back on, powered by the backup generator. And Stiles forced himself to scream.

 

*

 

Stiles jerked awake in his desk chair. Mr. Gleason’s Physics class must’ve been really boring if Stiles was falling asleep while he and Scott were sitting together in the back. It was almost summer break, and they were working on drawing the art for their upcoming comic book project. It ought to be ready by July.

_Scott is alive!_

Stiles wasn’t sure why this was so important, but it pleased him all the same.

In front of Scott sat Allison, but they hadn’t talked to each other since her third day of school. Scott hadn’t been cool enough for her. Scott blamed his asthma. Stiles blamed Lydia Martin.

Oh, sweet Lydia. Marvel of mental acuity and social stature.

Lydia didn’t take Physics, having already attended a community college class. So Willow Hale sat with Allison and shared her notes and hand lotion.

_Hale. Derek._

The name unlocked a slew of memories, drowning Stiles without a care for his sanity. What was real? What was nightmare? He couldn’t tell. Everything ran together. Scott’s blood ran through his fingers, mixed with deer entrails and Derek’s entrails.

Three beacons shone like an anti-Nemeton through the whole sludgy, overwhelming mess: Scott, Dad, and _court Derek._

Stiles wrapped a pale hand around Scott’s forearm beside him, and (like an awesome friend) Scott gripped back. Scott couldn’t know what was making Stiles act weird during a “wavelength of light” lecture, but he provided the necessary support anyway.

Had Stiles really killed Scott in his nightmares? Over and over and over....

On the board, the lightwaves formed three parallel lines, but Stiles had stopped paying attention to the lecture.

The bell rang, and Stiles threw his spiral notebook into his bag. “I gotta go,” he told Scott.

“We have three more periods,” Scott protested, arms spread helplessly as Stiles deserted him in the hallway.

Stiles felt a tiny pang at abandoning his friend, but Scott would be fine. He’d do better without Stiles around to (maybe) kill him. That happened way too often in Stiles nightmares/memories/fantasies.

He slammed the Jeep into first gear, then second and third. Leapt out of his car and shed his gear in his bedroom. He had to go over to the Hale house, and he had to do it bearing some kind of gift, but what did he have? What could Derek want?

In a few short minutes, Stiles pulled together all the requisite files and made him a mix CD. A little antiquated, but the Derek in his mind was an antiquated kind of guy.

This time, he didn’t bring a Taser or a knife. He didn’t park far away.

He gathered his tattered sanity and strode directly to the home’s front door. He’d never been so close to the Hale house before. It was a giant Craftsman, big enough for at least 20 residents. Between that and the land, Stiles wondered how much money the Hales had. Why had Derek squatted in a subway car if his family was rich?

Then again, that might not have happened.

His dueling memories swamped his senses. He could smell the spring grass, the soup Talia was cooking, the pervasive ash of his original timeline. Was Cora real? Were they friends?

When he’d been in Physics class, he’d known Scott was his only friend. Now Stiles wasn’t so sure. He could recall so many others. _Pack. Allies._

He knocked on the door with one hand; the other gripped a plastic CD case that made his fingers sweat.

Talia answered, “Hello?”

Stiles thrust the CD into his pocket. “Uh, is Derek here?”

Talia cocked her head like a cat. No, like a wolf. _Remember that she’s a werewolf, Stiles._ Though he hadn’t met her. Except for that time when he had.

“I don’t think I know a Derek.”

Stiles gasped on summer allergens. His eyes watered with the pollen, and he couldn’t focus. “Your son, Derek. Dark hair, stubble, likes kids.” Werewolf.

“Sorry, honey. I think you have the wrong house.”

Stiles’ knees jarred where they hit the wooden porch. _No_. Derek had to be here. Derek was always here. Derek could reject him. Derek could ignore him. Could hate him. But he _had to be here_.

Stiles remembered Scott’s betrayed eyes. He felt the too-slick hilt of the knife that killed Peter in his hand. He heard Allison and Kira shrieking in unison as he wrote them out of reality.

Derek was real. Derek was real. “Derek is real.”

He gripped the mix CD. “Derek.”

Talia said something, but he couldn’t hear her voice over the screams in his head.

 

*

 

Stiles shuddered into himself in a clearing in the Preserve, thankfully far from the Nemeton. The coldness in his heart made his skin prickle

...Or maybe it was just his new Alpha power sublimating out of his skin. He imagined the power—won with Scott’s blood—seething around him like fire and claiming the forest as his.

But not like foxfire. Scott’s sweet kitsune girlfriend hadn’t joined Stiles. She wasn’t helping him learn to control his new powers.

Killing Scott had really taught Stiles who his friends were. A little creepy that his remaining circle included The Evil Undead (Peter), but it also counted Lydia, and Stiles chose to view that as a win. If Lydia backed him strongly enough to come out to the forest in autumn’s wet chill, then Stiles knew his bid for Alpha-ness was going to stick. He was the winning horse.

At his side, Derek stood close enough to smell, even for a human. Detergent, molding leaves, chai tea. The born wolf lead domestic life these days, but Stiles didn’t mind. He didn’t need Derek for physical prowess. He needed Derek for advice and, unexpectedly, to hold this tenuous pack together with bonds of blood and knowledge and mutual respect.

Stiles had to tie Derek to him as strongly as he could, use the man’s connections and skills. Derek would make a perfect mate, for all the above stated reasons. So Stiles would have to woo him. Convince him that it was Derek’s idea.

“Shall we do a listening exercise?” Derek suggested.

Derek had been very cautious about making suggestions instead of giving orders, a consideration he hadn’t given ex-Alpha Scott at the outset. Stiles was unsure whether Derek had learned to be more polite (or laid-back) or whether he was scared of Stiles’ capacity for violence.

Stiles nodded and leaned his shoulder into Derek’s, projecting solidarity. He’d seen the move on a wolf documentary—nywolf.org—that had explained about posturing and wolfy mating behaviors in the wild. Whether Derek found him unconsciously charming or if Derek knew exactly what Stiles was up to, the effect was the same.

Derek leaned harder into Stiles in return, and a quick glimpse through lowered lashes proved that Derek was staring straight ahead at nothing. No challenge. This was courtship jostling.

Perfect.

“Lydia,” Stiles ordered his most scientific packmate, “Start walking. I’ll howl when I can’t hear you.”

She rolled her eyes (doubtless at his peremptory tone), but slipped between the trees as though her spiked heels had no trouble with the loose, uneven ground.

Derek exhaled into Stiles’ ear. “Keep your heart rate steady. Close your eyes and try to concentrate only on your hearing.”

Stiles wanted to lick him, but Derek probably wasn’t there yet. Besides, he was supposed to be tracking Lydia. In a low voice infused with a smidge of Alpha power, he replied, “Did you get that advice from _The Sentinel_?”

Derek shivered against him, a trembling line that danced to Stiles’ manipulations. He’d gotten the Alpha harmonic correct, then.

Derek’s tongue snaked out to lick his lips, and the tip brushed against Stiles’ earlobe. _On purpose or a riled-up accident?_

Stiles didn’t get a chance to find out because he could now hear more than just Lydia moving in his territory. Farther out, Kira and Allison tromped on fallen leaves, bitching about losing Scott and how they needed to practice their skills and find another Alpha to set up in Stiles’ place.

At Stiles’ side, Derek turned into him so that Stiles’ arm was a blade ready to bisect Derek’s chest. There was no way to misinterpret that twist and intimate distance.

But this was not the time. “Shhh.”

Derek took a step back, but Stiles didn’t let him get any farther, snapping an arm around his mate-to-be’s waist and clasping him close.

Stiles refused to tilt his head into the _werewolf listening position_ the others preferred. Just the same, he heard the now-foursome in his territory.

Isaac had followed Allison like the lapdog he was, better at moving in the woods but close enough now to sense. And Lydia’s piece of fluff was with them. Stiles snarled and sniffed hard, making sure that the twin in question didn’t smell freshly of _his_ packmate.

Kira suggested that Aiden would be the best choice of puppet Alpha, as if she hadn’t been around to watch the twins help kill Boyd, attack Isaac. Isaac growled low, so low the girls couldn’t hear him. But Stiles could.

Stiles wondered how Aiden missed the dissention in his coup’s ranks, but Aiden wasn’t the smartest werewolf in the box. He was nothing without Lydia.

“Will you stand with me?” Stiles asked Derek in a seductive whisper. He decided to chance it, tucking his head into Derek’s neck to lick grooming (claiming!) stripes over the jugular. “When the others come to take my Alpha-head?”

Derek tilted his head back, opening himself up to whatever Stiles might do to his sandpaper skin. “I can call Cora,” he offered. “Try to get her to stand with us.”

That couldn’t have gone better if Stiles had planned it. “We’ll be the Stilinski-Hale pack.” He closed sharp, gentle teeth over Derek’s Adam’s apple.

Derek gave a choking moan of agreement, and Stiles smiled into his new mate’s heartbeat.

 

*

 

The world righted itself again, and Stiles wasn’t a werewolf anymore. He wasn’t in the woods with all nature’s tides pulling at his veins.

He was inside, standing on the hardwood entryway floors at Derek’s loft. Isaac was in the kitchen. But Derek wasn’t there. It was just Stiles.

And Isaac. Who _was_ still a werewolf.

Stiles shivered and not from the drafty windows. He liked Isaac well enough, but there was something about him today. Something off.

Okay, fine. He didn’t like Isaac much. The werewolf always stole Scott’s time or abused his being Derek’s favorite or—

_Derek!_

Whatever nightmare this world might or might not be. Whatever strange thing was wrong with Isaac. Whatever. The important thing was to woo Derek.

The afternoon sun cast a soft spotlight on Derek’s bed, and Stiles wondered if he could find an excuse to lie on it. To make it smell of him.

Isaac called out, “Can you come help me with something?”

And of course Stiles went, touching as many surfaces as possible to mark his path. “Sup?”

So help him, if Isaac needed help folding his scarf collection, Stiles was out.

The kitchen smelled of cardboard boxes and cardboard cereals. Apparently, werewolves didn’t like the real food scents in their dens.

“I’m cleaning out the refrigerator,” Isaac said. As if that were enough explanation of what he wanted. And also proving that whole scent-free kitchen hypothesis.

Stiles pulled open the old fridge door, its freshness seal tugging reluctantly. “Well, it helps to get inside the thing if you’re going to clean it,” he told Isaac.

The inside was an empty, blinding white like a hospital room. No food, no shelves, no fallen bits of desiccated cilantro. Stiles had never seen a refrigerator free of food and stacking surfaces.

Isaac said, “I might’ve gone overboard.”

Stiles turned around to snark or to provide comfort, when Isaac pushed him in, squeezing Stiles into the space like a box of Chinese leftovers he _just knew_ would fit.

Cold plastic slicked along Stiles’ strips of bare skin, and he flinched away from the walls. “Very funny.”

He tried to heave himself out, only to be slammed back in.

Isaac shoved and twisted until the appliance hit linoleum. The loft rang with the sound. Stiles eyes swam with motes as he stared into the overhead halogens.

“This is for your own good,” Isaac said. His head blocked the track lighting, but his flashing gold eyes burned. “You can’t hurt yourself in there.”

The door came half closed. Isaac was really going to leave him in here. The space felt too small. Stiles couldn’t fit. Not with the door closed. He didn’t belong in here. Didn’t belong. Needed to get out. To breathe. _How do you breathe in an airtight container?_ His heart stuttered, and he knew Isaac could hear it.

“This always helped me find clarity,” Isaac said before letting go of the door and letting gravity do the rest.

In the last light, Stiles saw three wavy lines scratched onto the door’s insides, just above the egg holders. As if they’d been etched by fingernails. Like someone had tried to escape but hadn’t gotten very far.

“Let me out!” The cry echoed in his container, oddly high pitched. His blood sped in his veins, and he pelted the door with his fists. It didn’t budge, not so much as the sucking sound of the seal fighting back.

He couldn’t even make a refrigerator submit. He could only cry and try to breathe. In the dark. Alone. Always alone.

He shivered harder. Tried to rock himself comfortingly, but there was no space. Anywhere had to be better than here.

“Wake up,” he whispered. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.”

 

*

 

It was a warm evening, early summer, and Stiles stood on the lacrosse field. The freshly aerated grass seeds tickled his Alpha nose strongly, and he heard the stumbling sounds of Bach’s Partita en Fugue in G minor from the practice rooms. Some violinist was feeling ambitious tonight.

He hoped no one else was feeling ambitious.

His bright red eyes scanned over the crew he’d brought with him. Derek was already shirtless and shifted, pressed against Stiles’ thigh to better protect the Alpha. Stiles’ dad stood on his opposite side, tired circles under his eyes but packing wolfsbane-infused bullets in his ammunition clips. Cora inspected her nails, bored, from where she stood next to Peter whose human teeth gleamed predatorily in the moonlight.

Dad asked, “You think they’ll go for it?”

Stiles shrugged. It didn’t really matter. “If we sue for peace and win, life is better for them.”

Against Stiles’ leg, Derek tensed and growled. Stiles tamped down on the urge to ask _What is it, boy? Is Timmy down the well?_ because dog jokes were so passé, and also his mate didn’t appreciate being teased in front of the other betas.

Chris stepped out from behind the bleachers, hands up and empty. “I’m here to witness,” he tried to placate the rumbling werewolf. “I agree with Stiles here, but I’m neutral.”

Figured. Stiles was pretty sure Chris didn’t care whether or not Stiles had killed Scott ( _had reveled in freedom and the warm squish of life running through my hands_ ) because that was just werewolf business. But this potential war in Beacon Hills involved his daughter too.

An arrow in Argent silver flew from behind the wavy goal lines and thunked into the grass in front of Cora. Cora looked at it, rolled her eyes, and nibbled on a hangnail.

Stiles asked, deceptively calm, “Were you sent to distract us?”

“I’m only observing,” Chris said. He backed toward the bleachers and pointedly took a seat in the third row.

Allison loosed another arrow, this one at Stiles. Derek caught it in midair and snarled, though he didn’t leave his place at Stiles’ side. Stiles could have dodged the projectile to make a statement, but this was even better.

“Hello, Allison,” Stiles said when her party came close enough.

“You killed Scott,” she replied. Behind her, Kira sniffled. Isaac and Aiden ran nervous eyes over the assembled fighters.

 **For Stiles’ team:** an Alpha, two ex-Alphas, an always beta, and a Sheriff. Five fighters.

 **For Allison’s team:** a hunter, an ex-Alpha, an always beta, and an untried kitsune. Four fighters.

Stiles offered, “I loved Scott.”

“Doesn’t change the facts.” Kira drew her mom’s katana.

“We don’t have to fight. We can stay friends.” Stiles knew his attempt to reason would go nowhere. But he wanted to make the show good for the Argent arbiter. And for his own father. “I’m barely an Alpha at all, and the twins can do their thing without being under me.”

“What about Isaac?” Allison challenged.

Stiles thought it was interesting that Isaac didn’t ask this on his own behalf.

“If Isaac wants to stay in Derek’s pack, he’ll have to join me, of course.” Stiles stroked a hand through Derek’s wavy hair.

Days ago, Stiles had hoped his mating with Derek would bring Isaac into the fold, but now he knew not to expect it. Isaac was wholly Allison’s, possibly had been all along.

“We won’t submit to you,” said Allison. She nocked another arrow and aimed it directly at Stiles. “Stand down or tear Beacon Hills apart.”

After that ultimatum, she loosed her arrow.

Stiles twisted out of the way, ruining her shot. “This is how you treat requests for peace?”

Then he smelled the familiar blood, and Stiles’ knees shook. He heard the snicker-snack of breaking bones, didn’t hear the artery-clogged heartbeat. The arrow had missed Stiles, but it sunk deep into the Sheriff’s neck, killing him instantly.

Dad was dead. Stiles rushed to the corpse’s side. Allison’s bow trembled in her murderous hands.

Peter leapt forward. Taking advantage of her shocked inattention, he disemboweled the huntress with one swipe of his deadly claws. He roared his triumph to the assembled fighters.

Allison’s team was down to three: a beta, an ex-Alpha, and a kitsune. Did they still have the heart to continue?

Stiles dragged himself to his feet, hands coated in his father’s deathly liquids. “Last chance to submit. Allison is dead. You are alone.”

But the enemy did not submit, and this bald acknowledgement of his daughter’s death drew Chris off the bench.

“Hales!” screamed the last remaining Argent, waving a gun in his hand. “I’ll kill you all!”

Stiles bared his teeth and slid in front of his pack (his mate!), ready to meet the threat. He ducked and weaved as he progressed across the field, making himself a difficult target. Cora appeared at Stiles’ shoulder, shadowing him as they advanced on the one hunter in all of Beacon Hills.

Behind him, he heard the grunts and smacking flesh that signified werewolves fighting each other.

Stiles felt Derek’s death like a migraine.

He pushed that agony into Argent, mingling fresh blood with dead on his claws.

Cora said, “They’ll send more hunters.”

Then she was thrown to the side by Isaac. Not-so-sweet Isaac with his gore-dipped curls and psycho’s smile.

Isaac’s claws caught at Stiles’ shoulder, and Stiles didn’t fight back. What did he have left? His Hales could get along without him. He had no parents left. No mate.

Isaac’s incisors grew. They sparkled in the moonlight. _That’s for Twilight vampires, not for the werewolves_ , Stiles amused himself by correcting the universe.

Hot breath on his neck, and Isaac tore Stiles’ throat out.

As Stiles’ eyes closed, he saw the remaining wolves rip the new Alpha apart into a steaming pile of viscera. He had to laugh inside his mind, even if his body wouldn’t make the action. _Who’s the Alpha now?_

And his world went dark.


	5. The Inevitable Happily (Something) After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles wakes up in the middle of a fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place all in one reality/dream/what-have-you. So all the little scene breaks are just that: scene breaks. No universe jumping here.
> 
> Oh, and a shout-out to Mulder200 for being an awesome reader who comments on things. You’ve made my first posting experiences with AO3 ever so much more gratifying.

Stiles woke with a slap across the face.

Steaming latte milk coated the hardwood floor in the entryway of Derek’s loft. (He must have dropped it. He remembered now, bringing coffees for himself and Derek— _Derek! Wooing!_ ). It mixed with tea tree oil cleaner (also dropped; brought from Trader Joe’s, to clean the apartment) and soaked into the old AAA maps he usually kept in his glovebox.

The slap had come from the brick wall, leaving scraping imprints on his cheek. The jagged notches burned like cleansing fire. His ears rang from the impact.

Now wasn’t the time for tidying or map discussion. He needed to join the fight in progress, even if his mind was still sleep-muzzy.

Just ahead of him, Scott and Kira stood back-to-back. They constantly switched opponents to confuse the seven circling hunters. Not that the hunters weren’t already confused, going from Scott-and-Kira in front to Ethan-and-Aiden attacking from behind.

Isaac performed distracting acrobatics and eye flashing, so that Allison could pick off the unwary from above.

Cora and Peter had gone to opposite sides of the room, each protecting a human (Lydia and Danny, respectively).

There was a lot of growling and grunting, twanging and twirling. And over it all, the scent of spilt latte milk and tea tree oil. Which probably wasn’t helping the werewolves navigate the twenty (now nineteen) hunters. Each of whom wore a patch with the three-lined wavy symbol.

The hunters were less bulky than most of the Argent lot, but they still bristled with bows and guns and knives. _And is that a metal fan?_

Three shots cracked. Scott and Kira had rotated so that she’d bear the brunt of their two, but the third headed for Derek. Stiles nearly saw it too late.

Derek was in a corner, all by himself. His eyes flashed beta blue, but even he couldn’t move quickly enough dodge a bullet.

 _No! Derek!_ Stiles couldn’t stop a bullet, but he could render it harmless.

He reached out with his mind and _believed._ Just like Deaton had taught him. Just like the mountain ash ring falling around evil-Scott’s feet in that other world.

The wolfsbane tugged its way out of the casing and formed a pile in an unobtrusive corner.

Hot and inescapable, the bullet wedged into Derek’s heart. Blood speckled to the floor.

And Derek healed.

The hunter blanched like an almond.

She pulled the trigger five times in quick succession, and Stiles reached out again. His belief deposited the wolfsbane in the same corner. Not even a handful, but moving it exhausted him all the same. He folded to the ground and breathed shallowly. He smelled coffee and coppery blood, all mixed together so he couldn’t tell whose was where.

The room felt quieter here, like someone had muffled Stiles’ ears with linen wraps.

A new clip in her pistol, the hunter aimed again. Once more, Stiles sent wolfsbane to the corner like a delinquent child. He inhaled, and the air rattled wetly in his throat. But he smiled through the slickness in his mouth as Derek advanced on the hunter and sent her sailing up to the balcony where Allison could dispose of her.

“Stiles!” Derek was at his side, lifting Stiles’ head off the floor so that he couldn’t drown in the dark red pooling under his lips. “What happened? Who hurt you?”

 _I was saving your life, you idiot. How could you not notice?_ Not that Stiles needed Derek to notice. He’d have done it anyway.

Though, it would’ve made a great courtship moment. Saving his Affectionate Object’s life.

Well, getting his blood everywhere would make the loft smell like him. That had been half of Stiles’ initial intent in coming over. The other half had been to pore over maps of places they’d seen the wavy lines, but it looked like the wavy-line mystery had been solved when the emblem-wearing hunters showed up. _Go Nancy Stiles!_

He’d have giggled if it wouldn’t hurt his chest so much.

Derek’s lips moved, but Stiles couldn’t hear a thing. _Oh. This is another nightmare. I’m dying._ How nice that this time he got to be helpful and then die in Derek’s arms. His nightmares didn’t go that well. It probably meant someone was about to kill Derek, actually, while Stiles looked on.

Nightmare or not, Stiles wasn’t standing for that!

Or lying down. Whatever.

Stiles gasped in as much air as he could handle, trying to draw strength from the proximity to his AO (coincidentally also a perfectly healthy American werewolf (in America)). He reached out with his spark and grabbed all the wolfsbane in all the weapons in the room. _Sorry, Allison._

The hunters might try to get Derek while Stiles was incapacitated, but he had that one last trick. He may not know much magic, but he could do this. Could save his Derek. His sanity. His beloved.

The wolfsbane pile in the corner grew to a hip-high pyramid. No one noticed.

Stiles convulsed in Derek’s arms.

A bullet bored through his frantic werewolf caregiver and into his own cold-wrapped heart. Stiles didn’t feel the impact, but he smirked his victory.

Stiles could only look straight ahead, so all he saw was Derek’s neck. It heaved and dripped with clear sweat. And then it spidered with black veins. _No! I got all the wolfsbane!_ Unless someone had smelted powder into the bullets themselves.

_No!_

So the hunters would win after all. Stiles had failed to save his love, his friends, himself. He was useless. No wonder he couldn’t actually get Derek’s attention.

_Wake up! Wake up. Not Derek. Not my pack. Wake up!_

He collapsed forward into Derek’s neck until he couldn’t see anything at all.

 

*

 

_Inside of Derek, the werewolf healing took hold, closing over his wound as best it could. But when the projectile had gone through Derek’s body and into Stiles’, it took some of Derek’s flesh with it._

_Derek’s healing got confused. And it tried to fix Stiles as an extension of itself. It healed his bullet wound, cleared his lungs of blood, warmed his heart, and pepped his energy up to pre-magical-action levels. (This wasn’t a wolfsbane bullet at all. The black lines had been Derek’s taking Stiles’ pain.)_

_And it found his spark._

_But the healing magic didn’t know that the spark was Stiles’ spark. Because Stiles was Derek was Stiles, as far as it knew._

_The two men pressed together, joined briefly on every level._

_So it replicated the spark (leaving this bit where it had spontaneously grown) and pushed it into Derek’s soul. The body-in-the-before (just Derek) hadn’t had enough spark to replicate after healing Cora, but now the werewolf healing powers had something to work with._

_It made enough to power a whole Alpha wolf and put it where it belonged._

_When the unnatural cold around Stiles’ heart dissipated, his self-confidence and goodness returned. The healing replicated that in Derek’s heart as well._

_This was all True Healing._

_They would be whole and hale. So long as they survived the hunters outside this healing head-and-soul-space._

*

 

Derek roared an Alpha’s roar, and his fractured ex-betas surged forward. (It was interesting for Stiles to see who was affected by the change and who wasn’t.)

  * Cora took down two of the wavy-line hunters before they could reload from their last, ineffective volley.
  * Isaac stacked enemy bodies into a hunter mountain, thankfully in a different corner from where Stiles had stocked the interlopers’ wolfsbane.
  * Peter tore one hunter’s throat out with his extended claws. (Stiles would have preferred the teeth, but supposed that would be more difficult for the Sherriff’s department to ignore.)



Scott and Kira continued as they had been. Allison paused in her shooting for a moment, but that probably had more to do with figuring out what her partner (Isaac) was up to.

Even after this sudden show of fresh power, some hunters remained, and they’d put new clips in their guns. Clips still loaded with wolfsbane.

Derek charged forward into the melee, fearless like a man who hadn’t just been on death’s front porch, and Stiles prepared to protect his Affection Object (and all his friends) once again. He breathed the charged air, heavy with sulfuric gasses and anticipation, and let his affirmed-pack’s energy rush into his lungs. The wolves roared, and their sounds, their breaths, filled him to the brim.

_Is this what pack is really like? Because it wasn’t like this with Scott._

He felt too full, too strong, too sparkly with magic. If he didn’t release it out soon, would he explode? That would be the nightmare here.

He pushed the magic out into air already full of snarls and scream and ringing gunshots. He ordered it to chase down all the poison.

He felt strong, stronger than he ever had before (except for in that nightmare where he’d been Alpha, but that had been a different kind of strength, and probably enmeshed with being a psychopath). He could manipulate this mountain ash and make diamonds out of it if he wanted. Maybe.

And, this time, the magic didn’t drain him. He didn’t crash to the ground. Didn’t gasp for coppery air. Didn’t get all fluid and fuzzy.

Stiles laughed his delight. He confiscated wolfsbane from pockets and silver, all without any repercussions. _This is great!_

The few mobile hunters sidled to the door, gathering their wounded as they retreated.

The lead hunter spoke in accented English. “You will regret this day, wolfs.”

Kira said something in a language vaguely familiar, but which Stiles didn’t speak. The lead hunter bowed to her, or perhaps only stooped to pick up a fallen comrade.

Derek just growled.

In the aftermath, the loft stood silent. Stiles wasn’t so good with silence.

He stomped over to his fallen bags (well, not really stomped, but it sounded that way on the floorboards when no one else wanted to disturb the stillness). “I guess we’ll need these!” He brandished the cleaning supplies—mostly Method and Seventh Generation—he’d brought along.

Derek’s furniture was ruined. _Why does he even stay here? He’s been impaled through the floor, for goodness sake!_ That could be the point, though. His blood stained the hardwoods. Then again, so did a _lot_ of other people’s.

No one moved.

Stiles rolled his eyes at them. What were they waiting for? A Facebook event invite?

He shoved a Swiffer and its corresponding wet wipes at Isaac. “Here. You start with the floor.” There were still patches of more-than-blood to deal with. The Swiffer wouldn’t do much for that. “Scott, Allison. Can you two work on the, uh, chunks?”

They nodded their stunned agreement.

Kira raised her hand as if to say _Scott was my partner. What can I do?_

If no one else was going to step up, Stiles would keep on handing out assignments. “Kira, you work on what’s salvageable and what needs to be replaced. Maybe Derek can help you?” That last bit was a question because even Stiles wouldn’t presume to order an Alpha in his own den.

He sneaked a look at Derek. _I hope he took that suggestion in the spirit in which it was meant._ Derek’s eyes had faded to their normal hazel and watched stiles in soft admiration. The Alpha nodded his acceptance. Wow.

 _I guess I’m still in charge._ “Cora and Lydia, you can come with me to pick up more supplies. I didn’t bring enough for all this. Which leaves Peter and Danny with the surface cleaners and disinfectants.”

Lydia frowned, but sighed her agreement. For his part, Peter didn’t argue at all, tilting his chin upwards in Stiles’ direction, a tactic the teen had used on Scott many times and noticed all the implications of.

_Holy shit. How did I end up outranking everyone here?_

It wasn’t worth worrying about. Now was Stiles’ chance to shine (and to make the loft Mr. Clean’s kind of shiny). He’d prove to Derek that he was a worthy mate (if wolves used that terminology in this particular reality/not-yet-nightmare).

Cora’s blood-flecked arm came up around his shoulder as they moseyed out the door. “Why do you want me with you? I swear if this is some ‘girls know about cleaning’ thing...” She let her threat trail off, and Stiles politely didn’t mention that she’d already agreed to come along, making her objections superfluous.

“I need your werewolf nose,” he said. “I don’t know what scents and stuff are okay on a large scale.”

That took the tension out of Cora’s bicep against his scapula. “Oh,” she said.

When they reached the Jeep, Cora clambered into the backseat and Lydia poked Stiles’ elbow from the passenger’s side. “And what about me?”

Stiles jerked the shifter into first gear, not as smooth as he could be. How long had it been since he’d driven anyway? “I figured a banshee wouldn’t want to be around all that blood and murder-potential. I can exchange you for Danny if you want, but then you’ll have to work with Peter.”

Lydia snorted, and Cora asked, “What’s wrong with Peter exactly?”

“Oh, honey,” started Lydia. And then she launched into her whole story which entertained everyone (in its own creepy, cathartic way) all the way to the Target parking lot.

 

*

 

Stiles’ team of cleaner-gatherers returned to a loft full of playful would-be maids.

Scott was throwing dirty paper towels at Peter, who was playing hacky-sack-meets-juggling with each addition. Kira was sock sliding on floors that smelled of ammonia and almond, while Derek and Isaac shouted suggestions for her next trick. Danny and Allison shook their heads and admired each other’s reflections in the freshly cleaned window panes.

“Hey, guys.”

Everyone scrambled over, eager to tell Stiles all about what they’d cleaned so far and what was left.

Scott pawed through the Target bags that Stiles handed off. “What’s this?” he asked, pulling out a mandarin orange scarf with white hibiscus designs on it.

Stiles grinned like the moron he knew he was. “That’s for Isaac, since he probably lost one in the fight.”

Isaac bounded forward and snatched up the scarf, immediately winding it around his neck. He remembered the not-quite-a-joke. “Scarf-wearing is what I’m here for.” His smile trembled at the edges, like he didn’t know if _Stiles_ meant to be mean. Like Stiles’ opinion mattered, when it had never seemed to before.

So Stiles walked over and adjusted the scarf for him, tying the ends in a half-braid he’d seen in a YouTube tutorial once. “I wouldn’t recognize you without your scarf,” he teased to reassure him. “And since I want to be able to find you in a crowd....”

Allison cried, “You got a second Swiffer!” and the moment was lost. Isaac rushed over to join her in the struggle against the planked floors.

The betas and friends dispersed, and Stiles snatched at Derek’s wrist to keep the Alpha close for a moment. He leaned their shoulders together, surveying the territory without looking into Derek’s eyes, much like he’d done in that one nightmare where things had worked out between them. (Sort of.) “There are three Swiffers, actually,” he informed quietly. “If you wanted to go talk to Isaac.”

“How did you—?”

“I’m awesome, dude.” Stiles knocked into the werewolf gently, bouncing off because Derek was an unmovable object. “And I felt it. When we were healing. That was a—”

“Do you want to go see a show with me?” Derek rushed the words out in one breath.

_I haven’t even gotten my scent all over the apartment yet! You can’t be interested in asking me out! What about the deer? I haven’t done that here, I don’t think._

Stiles’ unresponsiveness must have gone on too long.

“Never mind. It was a bad idea. You’re all...” Derek gestured at Stiles and the loft, and Stiles didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, but he wasn’t letting Derek weasel out of this. This might be the biggest success since the wooing plan started (except for the time with the mating, as previously acknowledged, but yeah, no).

“No,” said Stiles. _Don’t you dare take back your invitation._ But that could have meant he was rejecting Derek, so he tried again. “I mean, yeah.” He knocked into Derek’s shoulder again, reveling in the crazy muscles that were all his for the knocking into. “So, like, when?”

“Well, it’s almost Christmas, so...” Derek blushed. “Maybe we could go see a panto? It’s this British Christmas thing I got into in New York. There’s one up in Sacramento, and I know you’ll love the audience participation.”

Stiles was half-stuck on _It’s almost Christmas._ All the nightmares had really messed up his sense of time. “Audience participation sounds great.” He glanced at Derek out of the corner of his eye to see Derek looking square at him. _Human courtship it is._ “So we should probably participate in all this clean-up.”

Derek gave him a tiny smile that split his stubbly not-beard in two like a beacon.

It made Stiles feel all squishy inside. He covered it up by passing over the promised Swiffer.

Derek took it like a quarterstaff and snuck up behind Isaac. When he swatted his beta, Isaac yelped and came right back at him.

 

*

 

_Play-fight over, Derek beckoned Isaac into a corner, NOT the one Stiles had forbidden to wolves._

_“Sup?” Isaac tried to sound casual._

_“Can we talk about when I sent you to live with Scott?”_

_Isaac’s face blanked as he tried to hide his emotions. “You wanted me with Scott. I went with Scott. End of story.”_

_Derek shook his head, hard enough that he’d have sprayed water everywhere if it had been wet. “You were my best beta, my little brother. So loyal.” From the look on Isaac’s face, this was coming out more mocking than positive, so he tried again. “I shouldn’t have used your past against you. I knew what I was doing, and it was effective to get you out of danger. But I shouldn’t have hurt you.”_

_Isaac shrugged. He was used to being hurt._

_“Worse, I shouldn’t have pushed you away. Just because I wanted you safe. Just because I was planning to stand alone and die at the Alpha Pack’s command... I was wrong. You knew it, but I didn’t listen. I wasn’t able to. Then.”_

_This wasn’t the kind of apology Isaac usually got. His father had never apologized for not listening, not even for hurting him really. If Isaac got a ‘sorry’, it was only ever a token to keep him coming back._

_He knew the difference between a real apology and a fake one. It just hadn’t mattered before._

_“Yeah,” said Isaac, agreeing with all of it, but mostly with Derek being a self-sacrificing idiot who was so lost in his own grief and loss that he couldn’t lean on the people loyal to him. “Just so long as you don’t do it again.”_

_It’d take time to build that trust back up, but God did Isaac want it._

_“Would you move back in?” Derek asked, no Alpha push in his tone at all._

_“Only after we finish cleaning.”_

_They Swiffed in harmony after that._

_*_

Three weeks passed. Three weeks, and Stiles hadn’t woken up anywhere else.

His heart stayed warm and vital, both night and day. Every morning brought a text from Derek about some inconsequential piece of trivia or a neat activity they could try that weekend.

He’d seen his new therapist seven times already.

The nightmares might have ended.

Or this one could be playing the long game. Stiles wasn’t sure. Cautiously, he tried to believe it.

He and Derek went to the British panto, a thing Stiles had never heard of, so maybe this wasn’t a dream. Derek was right, Stiles adored the audience participation; he shouted louder than the children and hissed madly at the mustachioed villain.

In the parking lot outside the tiny Sacramento theatre, they kissed for the first time. Stiles could taste the mint Derek had popped at intermission. He could smell Derek’s almond-flavored shampoo. He could feel the slick slide of tongue on tongue.

And he confessed. “I had so many nightmares. I wasn’t sure what was real. Is this real?”

Derek’s arm wrapped around his waist, a strong band that captured his ribs and pinned him with warmth. “Do I feel real?”

Stiles didn’t want freedom from these pinions. “God, I hope so. My therapist thinks this is real. That dating you is good for me.” They smiled at each other and kissed, chaste and quick because Stiles still needed to talk. “But she doesn’t know. I mean, I didn’t tell her about my plan.”

“Your plan?” Derek pressed gentle kisses to the side of Stiles’ jaw, tickling the skin with stubble.

Stiles stared out the Toyota’s window into the near-black parking lot, not quite lost in the remembered horror. “I stayed sane by wooing you.”

Derek pulled back to look directly into Stiles’ eyes, something Stiles had never done in any of the other realities. It had been too much of a dominance challenge then. “Did it work?”

“Well, I think I’m sane.” Stiles deliberately misunderstood the question. He didn’t want to talk about the selfishness in his wooing. Didn’t want to explain about the time he used Derek’s connections and subjugated an entire pack. Didn’t want to think about all the death and loneliness.

Derek brushed their cheeks together, too gentle for beard burning. “I promise to let you woo me forever,” he whispered. “Each kiss can be our first kiss.”

 _That’s sweet. But what if it’s true?_ “Just until I’m sure this is real?” It came out teasing, but Stiles knew he could never be sure.

Their lips pressed together, warm and connected. Over and over till Stiles mouth was slick and sensitive. Derek rested their foreheads against each other, looking more than smug about the expression on Stiles’ face. “You’ll always win me,” he declared. “I love you.”

“Thank you.” Stiles bit at his lower lip, watching Derek’s heated eyes track the motion. _Is this my Derek? How do I feel REALLY?_ Stiles didn’t know. He couldn’t say it back for sure. He’d spent so long fixating on winning Derek—any Derek—that Derek’s actual person had ceased to matter.

After three weeks of dating, he was pretty sure he reciprocated, but... _Is this where the nightmare starts?_ “I think I love you too.”

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it totally wasn’t clear (because I decided it wasn’t important enough to shoehorn in), but the hunters with the wavy line motif are ACTUALLY the people making the wavy lines everywhere. They’re from the Japanese hunter family, Mizuno. This is why random Japanese usage has wormed its way into Stiles’ nightmares (mixed with that report on Farewell to Manzanar from chapter one). So, it could be that this ending is in reality and has wrapped up all that Japanese and wavy-line stuff. Or it could be that this is yet another dream, one which fits with all of the other stuff going on. You decide! It’s like a Choose Your Own Nightmare.
> 
> Fun other note: My mother told me I had to give this a happy ending. I was going to do one of those Lemony Snickett finishes—where everything goes well in the last chapter and he tells you, “stop reading here if you want to be happy” and then something awful disturbs the peace. My mom was all, “You hate those endings. I hate those endings. Don’t do it.” So you can thank her for the HEA.
> 
> I hope you liked this story. Comments and Kudos welcome. :) Oh! And you can add me on [tumblr](http://cleverqueen.tumblr.com). Y’know, if you want to.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a beta for this story, and I'd love one. Help?


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